This installment of Best Of / Worst Of will be for the movie "City Of Missing Girls", reviewed HERE. Our character investigation will center on the following:

Captain McVeigh - A old hand at the detective business who finds himself wanting to help a young district attorney in over his head.

A.D.A. Horton - The assistant district attorney wants to bring in the oily King Peterson, but the crook is slick about getting law enforcement in compromising positions.

Crusading Reporter Nora Page - Nora's grown quite concerned with the rash of disappearances of young women and is quite displeased to see so little response {as far as she can tell} from the police and district attorney.

Our Heroes -- They Sweep Us Of Our Feet!

Capt. McVeigh - McVeigh, despite all of this screen time, does nothing. He gets zero kudo.

James Horton - Um. James did lay out Peterson, while at gunpoint, with a single punch. That deserves a Half-KUDO.

Nora Page - Nora manages to uncover a lot of information leading back to Peterson's involvement with the missing women and she deserves a KUDO for her investigative talents. Of course, she really should've been concentrating on giving up her promising career for her sudden and unconvincing romance with James, but I'll not strip her of her kudo, since she comes to her senses by the end of the film (please recognize the sarcasm).

Our Heroes -- They Dropped Us, Some Heroes!!

McVeigh - McVeigh is a boob. He gets a Half-DEMERIT for sticking his face into other people's relationships, when he's supposed to be investigating missing women and murdered actresses and saving an A.D.A. that he likes from having his career destroyed.

Horton - I have to issue James a DEMERIT for being so naïve! He walks himself right into a blackmailing trap set by King and his female accomplice Kate that was clear to anyone with half a brain [Why would a witness willing to sell out her gangster boss want to meet alone in her hotel room, and then answer the door in pajamas and a sheer robe?? And why, seeing this, doesn't he insist that she exit to her bedroom, change her clothes, and accompany him to his office, instead? Because he's deeply stupid.]

Page - Nora gets a DEMERIT for her fatal-level stupidity. She's already spoken to King Peterson so he knows who she is, but then she throws on a hat and tries to impersonate an actress-wannabe to investigate his talent agency undercover?? WTF, WOMAN!?!

We must give a special DEMERIT to Nora's father, Joe Thompson. While not actively a villain, the weak-spined man has figuratively gotten into bed with Peterson and then spends the film trying to deny to himself that he knows what he knows about King's operations.

King Peterson must be given a DEMERIT, not for being the villain, but for being a stupid villain. His mark comes against him because he arranged to kill a woman the police were interested in, but then left her body in an alley to be found. A woman who was already linked to his "talent school", drawing even more attention to his illegal operations rather than sending her on her job out of state as was the plan and then killing her there and ensuring she "went missing" far from his operations.